Long hot Summer…

Well, here we are… another week into the ‘new normal’.

There is nothing remotely normal about the week that has just passed and I’m fairly sure there will nothing normal about the ones to come. However, time marches on and we have no choice but to march along with it.

It is officially Summer, the days are longer, the weather is warm and sunny and life is… different, still.

I’m not sure what is normal about the ‘new normal’ but it doesn’t seem like much to me. It isn’t normal for us to have to wear face masks when we leave home and it is isn’t normal for us not to be able to meet friends for dinner in a restaurant and it is certainly not normal for us not to be able to travel without first thinking about why we want to go and whether or not the end justifies the means.

Weirdly all of this is making ordinary people turn a little crazy.

I feel like I have gone a little crazy.

In the beginning I was okay, I was resigned to the fact that there was lockdown, I knew why there was lockdown and aside from the odd grumble and the constant nagging of my over sexed libido I was getting on with it, but now, now I am not getting on with it at all. In fact I am about as far from getting on with it as you could possibly be.

I am driving myself slightly mad.

There is a part of me that wants to be doing things, normal things, like going to pub, shopping (I am not a shopper, many of you will know this, but even I miss being able to go and get the basics when I need to), not to mention that I can’t get my bloody haircut…

Then, there is the alternative me, the one that thinks I would just rather be at home on my own and that the less people I see, the happier I will be. I don’t want to go out now, I have been stuck here for three months now and I have forgotten how to do it. I have forgotten how to be civil and smile and talk and mingle and even though I go to work every day still and have to be amenable (to a certain extent) it’s a bloody struggle.

In the beginning I wanted to be at work, I couldn’t stand the thought of being furloughed or having to be at home every single day, with nothing to do except hoover and nag the kids. The kids can hoover, they are at home all bloody day and I can nag by telephone. So I do, often. Now, after all these weeks, I have changed my mind. I want to be at home. The more time I spend at home on my own, the more time I want to spend at home on my own.

I am becoming unsociable.

Weird. Especially for someone who loves to talk!

It is the Summer and I have always loved the Summer.

My whole being changes in the Summer, I turn into a bit of a hippy. I wear my hair curly and rarely wash or de-fluff. I get up late and go to bed late and I potter and hate having to be organised. When the school holidays start, I finish. I finish with the rushing about and the routine and the pandefuckingmonium of everyday life, I drag out my flip flops and my kindle and that is me done, my six week hiatus. The only trouble is, this year we have already had the what feels like the Summer holidays and it is isn’t even the end of term yet, officially.

Yet, we have been on holiday in this house since April!

When reality does hit, if it ever does and we do have to return to ‘normal’, it will hit us like a ton of bricks.

However, we don’t have to think about that for a long while yet. So let’s not.

As I have been writing I have been trying to think of other news. *laughingface There is no other news. Silly!

I can’t even choose an appropriate image for this post and I have been looking for way longer than should be necessary. I keep waiting for something inspirational to happen.. it’s not.

Simon is still hanging on in there.

I almost nearly, never, ended it the other day and then he called me and was all nice and smoozy on the telephone. Fuck me! He is charming. I had to have a gin afterwards to calm the fire in my pants!

Three bloody months of pen pal chitter chatter, still largely via email and I am no closer to meeting him now than I was when we were in the grips of lockdown. I am torn between wanting to keep him for my own amusement and wanted to ditch him because, well… just because. The trouble is he does amuse me and with not a lot of anything else to amuse me, you have to take what you can get.

However, a teeny tiny little thing cropped up this week (no not that!), it seems Simon may a little older than his profile admits.

This isn’t uncommon as anyone who is on the dating/singles scene will know, everyone lies about their age and even their names these days, it’s ridiculous. Often, I am talking to Ed who is 44, from Timbuctoo and he turns out to Paul, 51 from a town as far north from you as you could possibly get. He still wants to chat though. Well, why not you seem like an honest chap!

I get the age thing, most of us don’t feel or think we look our ages. I like to think I look okay for my age and a couples of years is fine I suppose, if you so feel inclined, but how many is too many? I thought Simon was fifty five, which, if I am honest, is at the top end of my ‘ageometre’. It just is.

However, it turns out he could be more like sixty five! Or close enough to it to make me nervous. He was talking about his first gig, which was apparently in 1972/3. Coincidentally that was the year I was born, which then begged the question… How old was he was in 1972?

By my calculations and I’m no mathematician, I would have said six/seven, which is surely too young to be rocking all over the world to Status Quo at the Assembly Halls? When I mentioned that I was born in 1972 and asked how old he was he said thirteen or fourteen, which is absolutely fine except it clearly states on his profile that he is fifty five. An out and out lie.

Do I care? I don’t know. Not really.

Age isn’t important to me per se, but looks are, shallow I know, but if I am going to be brutally honest, I don’t usually find men of that age attractive. Tragic but true and I agree that it probably says more about me than them. Having said that, I am never one to shy away from something new and besides I’m in now, three months in, to be precise and there has been some hard graft along the way on both sides, so I am willing to see it to the end, whatever the outcome.

He is part of my daily routine now and despite there being no physical connection, I enjoy his virtual company and I don’t want to lose it, yet. It may all fizzle out in time and if we do meet and he is sixty, god knows how old, it may never amount to anything, but while I still have a glimmer of hope, I will hang on in there too.

Of course he isn’t my only lockdown friend. I may be blonde but I’m not silly!

❤️